from the converted-into-dollars dept

After some amount of hand-wringing, the Federal Election Commission has said that political action committees (PACs) may accept bitcoin donations, though they can't then buy goods and services with those bitcoins. Furthermore, it has to convert the bitcoins to dollars before depositing them into its campaign accounts. In other words, its effectively allowing the use of bitcoin as a payment system, rather than as a currency. However, at the same time, it will allow campaigns to buy bitcoins as an investment vehicle.

There's also some confusion over what this all means. Rather than issuing a full ruling, the FEC released an "advisory opinion" based on a specific request from the Make Your Laws PAC, which specifically asked for the ability to accept bitcoin donations up to $100. What's not clear is if the FEC is just agreeing to that level of donations or if it's okaying larger donations as well. In fact, it appears that the FEC commissioners don't even agree with each other as to whether there's a limit on donation sizes:

That low sum assuaged the concerns of several commissioners about the risks of the virtual currency, said Commissioner Ellen Weintraub, a Democratic appointee.

"The $100 limit was really important to us," she said. "We have to balance a desire to accommodate innovation, which is a good thing, with a concern that we continue to protect transparency in the system and ensure that foreign money doesn't seep in."

[....] But FEC Chairman Lee Goodman, a Republican appointee to the panel, disagreed. He said that the advisory opinion treats bitcoin donations as in-kind contributions -- not official currency -- meaning that the only limits that apply are the federal caps on all forms of accepted donations. Those limit individuals to giving $2,600 to a candidate per election and $5,000 to a political action committee. Individuals and corporations can give unlimited sums to super PACs.

"To me, the opinion that the commission approved today supports the right of bitcoin users to contribute as they would all other kind things of value," he said, such as silver dollars and works of art.

So that's likely to create some sort of mess somewhere down the road.

In the meantime, it's notable that well-known techie -- and one of the small group of clued-in Congressional Representatives -- Jared Polis also just happened to announce today that you can donate to his campaign via bitcoin. Looking at that page, I note that the highest amount allowed is... $100. It would appear he's taking no chances with the disagreement over amounts allowed by the FEC. Polis claims to be the first Congressional rep to accept bitcoin, though others have pointed out that Rep. Steve Stockman has been accepting bitcoin for his Senate campaign for a few months now.

Either way, it's yet another step forward in making bitcoin somewhat more mainstream.

from the a-little-sunlight,-please dept

The money in politics issue is one that gets a lot of attention and the good folks over at the Sunlight Foundation have been trying to help provide much more transparency for years. And now they're bringing out the lawyers. Teaming up with the Campaign Legal Center and represented by Georgetown University's Institute for Public Representation, the Sunlight Foundation has filed complaints against 11 TV stations for blatantly violating the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which requires networks disclose who is actually buying political ads on TV.

Political nonprofits, which often come with singularly uninformative names like "American Action Network" or "Patriot Majority USA," are not required to disclose much of their spending — or any of their donors — to the FEC. But there is one place where they do have to leave a paper trail: the TV stations where they buy ads. That's why we put our focus there.

Just one problem: a bunch of TV networks have basically done everything possible to avoid complying. Even though courts have said that the major TV stations need to post very specific information online, many simply don't include the necessary (and required) information.

Why is it important? Because "Americans for Better Apple Pie" might be your local slag heap operator. "Citizens for a Conservative GOP" might be Democrats trying to sabotage the primary contender that they think has the best chance of beating their candidate in the general. These are not far-fetched scenarios. Take a look at this ad, which doesn't anywhere mention toxic materials, but which paint an indubitably positive picture of the chairman of the House committee that's now working on a rewrite of the government law on toxic waste. Unless you are looking carefully at your TV screen at just the right time, you'd miss the fact that these ads are brought to you by the American Chemistry Council — an organization that is lobbying on the bill in question. Without the online TV ad files, you'd never know that the American Chemistry Council spent some $250,000 airing the ad.

Hopefully the FCC actually does something and makes these networks obey the law.

from the upping-the-ante dept

The US's odd decision to effectively ban online poker as part of a national security law has never made much sense, other than as yet another paternalistic move by the government deciding what is and is not okay for you to do in the privacy of your own home. Some claim that the online poker ban is due to lobbyists from the offline casino industry, who don't like the competition -- but there's little evidence to support that. First of all, the offline casinos have talked about how they'd like to get into the online game themselves, but cannot due to this ban -- and it's quite likely that making games like poker more popular via online competitions would increase foot traffic to offline casinos as people who believe they've become experts online venture out to real world casinos.

Either way, it seems that the folks in favor of legalizing online poker are getting increasingly sophisticated in their lobbying efforts. Last year, they sent representatives to lobby in DC, and this year they're setting up actual poker games at both major party political conventions, trying to drive home the point that playing poker shouldn't be a crime. The article also notes that the lobbyists have started their own Political Action Committee as well, called PokerPAC, which has already raised some cash. Apparently, the poker players are getting serious about calling Congress' bluff on online poker.